Trenton police want to hire 12 more officers

TRENTON — If Trenton residents want more police officers on the streets, they will need to fork over some cash.

At Tuesday night’s council meeting, city police officials brought a proposal to hire back 12 more patrol officers, in addition to the dozen planned to be hired partly with federal grant funding.

This is a reaction to the 105 officers laid off last year.

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant will be used to fund both sets of hires. Council approved the initial 12 hires last year and were provided $565,076 yearly for three years.

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The catch with the grants is the city has to pony up money as well and is required to retain the 12 officers in the fourth year without any federal funding.

So for both grants if council was to approve the second one, the city would need to pay $1.2 million for the first year, $1.3 million for the second year and $1.5 million for the third year.

This led to some reservations from council members.

“Right now, we utilize this system as a welfare system,” Council President Phyllis Holly-Ward said of the city. “We don’t treat it like a business and generate venue. We have to get away from this mindset.”

Councilman George Muschal offered up a proposal to collect $8 million that is owed the city in municipal court violations as a way to fund the hirings. He also said the police department is not generating money because they don’t have a vehicle designated to violation of city ordinances.

“I’m all for putting more police officers on, however, I don’t see us generating any money at all,” he said. “Let’s not feed the price tag to the taxpayers. There’s no reason.”

Councilman Zachary Chester suggested the city uses a third party to collect debt. He said he was at a conference in Atlantic City and learned about a company that provides those functions.

“This company works with governments to collect debt and they are state certified,” Chester said. “I think these folks can help us in collecting that debt that’s in the municipal court.”

Business Administrator Sam Hutchinson responded to Chester that he would invite the company to a council meeting.

Chester also said that city officials needs to start looking at what to cut in the budget.

“This is the type of exercise that we have to start doing in the city,” he said. “There are some areas in our budget if we sit down and have a serious conversation about what the city can do about it so that we can retain these 24 officers.”

Hutchinson replied that “there’s not a whole lot to cut” because public safety is 70 percent of the budget.

Applying for the grant will be voted on at the April 21 meeting because it is due the next day.

Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. appeared before council Tuesday to talk about some new police initiatives.

He talked about implementing Nixle, a social media tool which allows police to communicate with the public.

“It allows the community to get real-time feedback and recognition to maximize community collaboration,” the police director said, adding the police department plans to have a Facebook and Twitter page as well.

Rivera also highlighted a program called CrimeEye, which he said is implemented in Philadelphia.

The program allows businesses to be a part of a surveillance video community.

Rivera said 25 businesses on South Clinton Avenue are already a part of the program.

“They are able to monitor each other,” Rivera said. “It’s an extra bit of security.”

The police director said he hopes to expand the program to residents.

Rivera said he also wants to start a chaplaincy program, which will create a partnership with various faith-based leaders to help police with response and assistance.

Finally, Rivera said there’s a summer initiative with the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office to equip the city’s police vehicles with plate readers.

Council also approved funding for 12 Chevy Tahoe patrol vehicle for $507,228. All the funds for the purchase came from two grants.

Muschal, who was a police officer for 40 years with the city, wanted to make sure the vehicles would be used by patrol officers.

About the Author

Originally from Webster, N.Y., David has been a reporter in N.J. for the past three years (first in Phillipsburg and now in Trenton).He is a Temple alum who interned at the Philadelphia Daily News. Reach the author at dfoster@trentonian.com
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